Christina Edkins (middle) was stabbed to death minutes after boarding the No 9 First West Midlands service (top left) in Birmingham. It has emerged that she had tweeted concerns about a 'man on the bus' a month before the attack (centre bottom). A 22-year-old man (below left) was arrested nearby on suspicion of her murder five hours later after officers spotted someone acting suspiciously behind Morrisons supermarket. As he was taken into custody, Christina's classmates at Leasowes High School in Halesowen brought flowers to the scene of the attack (right top, and tributes below) in Hagley Road.

Britain, Germany, Austria and Holland asked the European Commission on Thursday to review an EU directive that sets out free movement rights allowing migrants from European countries, such as Romania or Bulgaria, to establish residency and to claim welfare benefits.

The four countries are concerned that when the two Balkans nations gain full EU free movement rights in January 2014 there will be an explosion in "welfare tourism", where foreign European nationals from poor countries establish residency in wealthier countries in order to get welfare payments.

Graca Machel, the human rights activist and wife of Nelson Mandela, has warned that South Africa is an “angry nation” teetering on the brink of “something very dangerous” if extreme levels of violence in the country are not addressed.

Mrs Machel said the anger sprung from “unaddressed” issues around the country’s apartheid past, adding: “We have to be more cautious about how we deal with a society that is bleeding and breathing pain”.

Her comments are seen as deeply significant as both she and her husband have previously refrained from sharing their views about how the nation is being run since he left the presidency 14 years ago.

Mrs Machel was speaking at the memorial service on Wednesday of Mido Macia, a 27-year-old taxi driver who died in custody after he was tied to the back of a police van and dragged for 500 metres by officers, apparently for arguing over a traffic infringement.

Russian Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov today demanded an international investigation into the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, claiming it was “far from a coincidence” that six leaders of Latin-American countries who had criticized the U.S. simultaneously fell ill with cancer.

“How did it happen that six leaders of Latin American countries which had criticized US policies and tried to create an influential alliance in order to be independent and sovereign states, fell ill simultaneously with the same disease?” Zyuganov told Russian state television, urging an investigation under “international control” into Chavez’s death.

Zyuganov is accurate so far as his claim that six Latin-American leaders were diagnosed with cancer within a relatively close period of time, most notably Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in December 2012, although later analysis proved that she had never actually suffered from the illness.

TEMPO Interactive, Bandung, West Java: After spewing ash on February 21, Mount Tangkuban Parahu has been erupting since 4 March. The tourist area is now closed to the public.

Head of the Regional Disaster Management Agency of West Bandung, Maman Sulaiman, said the government had put up banners prohibiting visitors from entering the Tangkuban Parahu tourist site.

"Today (Wednesday, March 6) there was an eruption between 05.09 pm and 6:08 pm local time," said Surono, the head of the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Agency at the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources.

Bruno Fernandes de Souza, 27, pictured left, a goalkeeper who was tipped to play for Brazil at the 2014 World Cup, is accused of having Eliza Samudio, top right, killed to avoid paying child support after she gave birth to his love child. The former Flamengo player, pictured in action bottom right, had previously denied any knowledge of what happened to the 25-year-old, but told a Brazilian court yesterday how his best friend Luiz Henrique Romao had paid someone to kill her. He admitted that although he hadn't ordered his former lover to be killed, he had 'accepted' it.

British workers have seen their wages plummet faster than any other workforce in a developed economy, a new study reveals today.

Real wages dropped by 4.5 per cent between 2007 and 2011, leaving workers with smaller incomes at a time of rising costs for basic necessities such as food, fuel, gas and electricity - not to mention housing costs.

This marks a considerably sharper squeeze than the 2.7 per cent fall in Italy or 0.7 per cent drop in Japan, according to the report from the TUC.

New Treasury figures show how the average worker pays £1,166.32-a-year to fund working-age benefits, while £369.91 goes on paying debt interest. David Cameron today defended cutting welfare spending, saying the country would not be able to afford to fund care for the elderly if the nation is 'squandering billions on welfare for people who could work'. Speaking in West Yorkshire, Mr Cameron said there was no 'magic money tree' that allowed the Government to spend and borrow more.

The Obama administration warned of "costly consequences" for North Korea on Thursday, in the wake of Pyongyang's threat to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US and its recent nuclear test.

Speaking at a Senate hearing, the US State Department's special representative on North Korea said Washington would not engage in negotiations without a "fundamental change in attitude" from the pariah state.

Markets have settled after Italy's fractured election result and any threat of contagion to other euro members has been muted, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Thursday, suggesting the bank is in no mood to act.

The 17-country bloc's central bank discussed cutting interest rates, but decided to keep them on hold, citing positive economic survey indicators, which in turn suggest the ECB is ready to keep rates at 0.75 percent barring the economy taking another turn for the worse.

Italians delivered a strong rejection of austerity measures at elections last week and left no party grouping with enough support to form a durable government, raising the prospect of backsliding on economic reforms and debt-cutting measures.

“We must leave the austerity cage,” he told leaders of his Democrat Party (Pd), responding to Italy’s electoral earthquake by tearing up his pre-election programme.

“A change of course is absolutely necessary given that five years of austerity and attacks on workers have pushed up public debt levels across Europe,” he said.

“The vicious circle between belt-tightening and recession is putting representative government at risk and making it impossible to govern. The immediate emergency is the real economy and joblessness,” he said.

The kidnapping of 21 United Nations peacekeepers on the volatile Golan Heights has focused sharply on the fractured Syrian opposition, and raised serious questions about the future of the country if President Bashar Assad is ousted from power.

On Wednesday, a group calling itself the Martyrs of Yarmouk posted a video showing captured white UN vehicles containing a few blue-helmeted peacekeepers. Their message, in Arabic, — delivered by a spokesman identified as Abu Qaed al-Faleh — was as unrealistic as it was clear: “They will not be released until after Bashar Assad’s forces withdraw from the village of Jamlah bordering Israel.”

The kidnapping came as the Syrian opposition was enjoying its highest level of support from the U.S., as Britain said it would increase aid to opposition forces, and as the Arab League signalled that its members should arm the rebels.

North Korea threatened the United States on Thursday with a preemptive nuclear strike, raising the level of rhetoric while the U.N. Security Council considers new sanctions against the reclusive country.

North Korea has accused the United States of using military drills in South Korea as a launch pad for a nuclear war and has scrapped the armistice with Washington that ended hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea, which has one major ally, neighboring China, threatens the United States and its "puppet", South Korea, on an almost daily basis.

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest," the North's foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the "dirty wars" in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country's descent into full-scale civil war.

Colonel James Steele was a 58-year-old retired special forces veteran when he was nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise the paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency, an investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic shows.

After the Pentagon lifted a ban on Shia militias joining the security forces, the special police commando (SPC) membership was increasingly drawn from violent Shia groups such as the Badr brigades.

Malaysian security forces killed 31 Filipino gunmen on the island of Borneo, officials said Thursday, and the government rejected calls by the United Nations for an end to the fighting.

At least 60 people, including eight Malaysian police officers, have been killed in the nearly month-long conflict over an attempt by followers of a Philippine-based sultan to assert a historic claim over parts of Borneo Island.

The rebels who kidnapped 21 UN peacekeepers in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights said on their Facebook page Thursday that the act was meant to stop the Syrian army's attacks on rebels and civilians.

The rebels said they were treating the captured Filipino peacekeepers like guests, but manila is demanding their immediate release and has called their detention "illegal."

France's Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian paid a surprise visit on Thursday to French forces battling Islamist rebels in rugged northern Mali, saying their military mission would not end until security was restored in the West African country.

After reviewing ranks of French soldiers near the desolate Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, Le Drian told France 24 television that Paris' aim was to help "reestablish security in the whole of Mali's territory".

Rebels holding 21 U.N. peacekeepers near the Golan Heights in southern Syria say government forces must leave the area before they free their "guests", an activist in touch with the fighters said on Thursday.

Rami Abdelrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted a spokesman for the "Martyrs of Yarmouk" rebel brigade as saying the peacekeepers were being held as "guests" in the village of Jamla, about a mile from a ceasefire line with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The growing practice has so far flown under the radar of immigration authorities, who are yet to provide extra scrutiny to ensure video chat marriages are not misused. While Colorado, Texas, Montana, Alabama, Missouri, and California permit these proxy marriages, freely allowing couples separated by distance to marry, they are illegal elsewhere in the U.S. unless one partner is in the military.

Dianna Hanson was volunteering as part of a six-month internship at Cat Haven sanctuary in Dunlap when she was tragically attacked after getting into the male lion's cage on Wednesday. The four-year-old lion named Couscous was immediately shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy responding to the scene. Cat Haven founder and executive director Dale Anderson, right, was crying as he read a one-sentence statement extending his thoughts and prayers to the victim's family.

Access to life-extending drugs for the disease, which kills 10,000 a year in the UK, is poorer than in France, Spain, Germany and Italy, according to the report, sponsored by the drugs firm Astellas.

Dr Heather Payne, a consultant oncologist at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “There are many reasons for international differences in cancer survival, but swift access to innovative treatments and the availability of best practice care are important in order to deliver the best outcomes in terms of life extension and quality of life.

Flanked by almost 20 men with rifles, Omar Abu al-Chechen kneels on a carpet and delivers a rousing speech urging fellow Muslims to support the 'jihad' against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Dressed almost entirely in black, the militant from Russia's Chechnya region declares an Islamist state is within reach. Fellow fighters from the brigade of foreign militants he leads translate his Russian words into Arabic.

Beppe Grillo stirs strong feelings. His supporters believe he can clean up Italian politics and give ordinary people more say in decision-making. His opponents see a dangerous populist who evokes memories of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

International media describe Grillo as a comic, which on one level he is, but the man who jointly created and leads the party that in just three years has become the largest in Italy is much more than that.

Behind his tirades against the political and business elite is a shrewd mind, a hugely influential alter ego and the desire to win complete power in the euro zone's third largest economy.

In a sprawling Israeli prison, Palestinian activist Hassan Karajeh sat through a hurried court hearing in a language he didn't understand under the authority of a military occupation he and his people reject.

The translator in the cramped portacabin-turned-courtroom seldom bothered to relay the military judge's words, and the tall, bearded detainee spent most of the time whispering to his family and blowing kisses to his young fiancée.

Outside Ofer Prison's walls and throughout the West Bank, Israeli troops have clashed in recent weeks with Palestinian protesters fed up with Israeli detention policies, an emblem of what they see as Israel's unjust rule over their lives.

Gay rights activists will rally in Sydney this week to demand an external investigation, apologies and compensation for alleged police brutality at last weekend's Mardi Gras celebrations.

Politicians and community groups called for an inquiry after a video emerged that appears to show a handcuffed 18-year-old, Jamie Jackson, being thrown to the ground by an officer at the festival about 11.30pm (AEDT) on Saturday.

Bryn Hutchinson, 32, later came forward to say he had been thrown to the ground by several officers in Darlinghurst after a disagreement over whether he should be allowed to cross a road.

Scientists at the University of Florida have predicted large numbers of super-sized mosquitoes in Central and South Florida this summer. Researchers say large numbers of Gallinipper mosquitoes are waiting to hatch and any heavy rainfall will make the insects emerge in 'large numbers'. The insects can be 20 times the size of the more common Asian tiger mosquito, pictured right in comparison.

Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military are subject to widespread, systematic ill-treatment that violates international law, a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund said. The Unicef report estimated that 700 Palestinian children aged 12 to 17, most of them boys, are arrested, interrogated and detained by the Israeli military, police and security agents every year in the occupied West Bank. The study found widespread mistreatment at each stage, including verbal and physical abuse and threats, along with coerced confessions. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it had cooperated with the Unicef investigation and would study the report closely.

Australia's foreign minister, Bob Carr, has confirmed that the man known as Prisoner X, a dual Israeli-Australian national who died in mysterious circumstances in a high-security Israeli prison in 2010, was working for the Israeli government.

Ben Zygier's death in December 2010, apparently by suicide, has been shrouded in mystery. Last month, Israel was forced to admit that it had secretly imprisoned Zygier on serious but unspecified charges.

Zygier, 34, a father of two, originally from Melbourne but who had lived in Israel for 10 years and was also known by the names Ben Allen and Ben Alon, was believed to have worked for Israel's external intelligence agency, the Mossad. He was arrested in February 2010.

Syria said it had detected Israeli spying devices planted at certain point on the Syrian coast, the state-run SANA news agency said Wednesday.

Syrian authorities have recently detected Israeli espionage devices at the Syrian coast, the report said, citing an official source as saying that the devices' functions include tapping, imaging and recording.

The report, however, stopped short of spelling information about the exact location of the devices and the time of their discovery.

Britain is to step up assistance to Syria's opposition, the foreign secretary, William Hague, has said on Wednesday , providing armoured vehicles, body armour and other non-lethal equipment to the "moderate, democratic forces" battling President Bashar al-Assad.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Hague said that international efforts to end the bloody two-year conflict in Syria had been an "abject failure". He said the European Union had to "move further" if there was no political solution.

A court ruled on Thursday that Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can sue New Zealand's spy agency for illegal surveillance, opening the government up to more scrutiny over its role in an unlawful 2011 police raid on the internet entrepreneur's home.

The New Zealand Appeals Court rejected an application from the attorney general, acting on behalf of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), to exclude the agency from the lawsuit. New Zealand's High court ruled last year the agency could be held liable for illegally spying on Dotcom.

China's naval and paramilitary ships are churning up the ocean around islands it disputes with Tokyo in what experts say is a strategy to overwhelm the numerically inferior Japanese forces that must sail out to detect and track the flotillas.

A daily stream of bulletins announce ship deployments into the East China Sea, naval combat exercises, the launch of new warships and commentaries calling for resolute defense of Chinese territory.

Increased use of English in videos by Islamic extremists and a rising flow of recruits from Europe to fight in Syria and on other battlegrounds is disturbing U.S. officials who fear some could return to Europe or come to the United States to plot attacks.

Only last week, a man who spoke English and Arabic and called himself Abu Ahmed al-Amriki (Arabic for 'the American') starred in a new video message posted on jihadist websites and produced by al Shabaab, the Islamic militant group based in Somalia.

WJBF News Channel 6 has learned the National Weather Service (NWS) has confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down in Glascock County Tuesday night.

The National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Georgia surveyed the damage caused by a line of thunderstorms that pushed across Glascock County from approximately 6:55 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Tuesday night.

The tornado was described as having estimated peak winds of 100 mph, and it was on the ground in Gibson for an estimated 3.24 miles.
Tuesday... march 5 2013.